If you wonder why there has been a lack of brilliant ideas coming out of Britain lately it might be because the nation's businesses are cutting back on research.

A third of British companies spend nothing on searching for new ideas, services and products according to a new survey conducted by IT consultancy Portal. The survey of 500 companies up and down the country found that only a fifth of companies spend more than five per cent of their revenues on research and development (R&D), despite the fact that nearly 52 percent recognise that innovation is critical.

In a whitepaper entitled “Innovation: the first casualty of a downturn”, the companies said that the economic downturn is the main reason for failing to invest in R&D. Less than seven per cent of respondents have increased their investment since the start of the recession in 2008 while nearly 14 per cent have “cut their investment in R&D enormously.” More than 48 per cent said they would invest more if the government was able to offer tax breaks on R&D expenditure.

Lack of available funds is not the only reason for companies failing to invest sufficiently. Perceived difficulty of the process is deterring some from applying sufficient resource too.

New research from a UK’ website has revealed that the average Briton loses 35 nights of sleep each year due to social networking, equating to just over 5 hours every week. The study, by www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, has revealed that Britons lose an average of 35 nights sleep every year through checking their social networking accounts before going to sleep.

The pol of 1,922 people, all of whom had a social networking was part of research into how much time Britons spend on social networking sites. More than 96 per cent of them said they visited the site ‘every day’.

Those polled were then asked if they ever lost sleep due to checking social networking sites from their bed, to which 67 per cent said ‘yes’. Almost all, 89 per cent, of these respondents said that they got ‘distracted’ by social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter before going to sleep at night, and therefore spent longer on the sites than they meant to.

The respondents were then asked to stipulate, on average, how many minutes they spent doing so per night, to which the answer was ’46 minutes’. Half said they accessed their social network site(s) every day from their bed before they went to sleep.

When taking all factors into account, the average social networker in Briton loses 279 hours worth of sleep each year which, as the recommended period of sleep per night is 8 hours, equates to almost 35 nights worth of sleep lost.

A phone advert featuring a cartoon picture of Jesus winking and giving a thumbs-up sign has been banned by a UK advertising watchdog. After meeting for its first prayer, the Advertising Standards Authority decided that taking the mickey out of Christianity was not right for advertising purposes.

The publicity for Phones 4 U, which was used in the national press on 21 April this year, showed Jesus with the Sacred Heart on his chest and the slogan "Miraculous deals on Samsung Galaxy Android phones". The Advertising Standards Authority said it was likely to cause offence and should not be used.

The ASA said: "Their depiction of Jesus during Easter, the Christian Holy Week, gave the impression they were mocking core Christian beliefs." We wonder if they would have applied the same standards to a Skye advert in Italy which shows sports people performing miracles including parting waters, the miracle of the full fishing nets, and floating in the air.

Still it is unusual for an enlightened country to ban an advert on religious grounds. We would have thought the only advantage of doing something like this is that it would mean that some advertising agency staff members would be stoned rather than getting stoned like they usually do.

While many hoped that the UK’s robot football team will outdo its human version(s), because let’s face it – they could hardly do any worse, it once again ended badly as the electronic sportsmen got knocked out already in the group phase.

Dr Subramanian Ramamoorthy said that Edinburgh University’s four-robot team will come back with an improved side. Apparently, the team’s loss is down to lack of fine tuning that would result from having a national RoboCup tournament. Ramamoorthy said:“Almost all the bugs that stopped us were because we were not match ready".

Organizer of the RoboCup Dr. Cetin Mericli said that the event came to be after chess grand master Garry Kasparov lost against IBM’s Deep Blue. He did not mention that Kasparov "lost" to the team of cheaters behind it, but that’s beside the point.

Dr. Mericli pointed out that making a good robot football team and the accompanying problem solving will be an important task for when they become part of our lives. He added:"We want to create robots that are intelligent enough to take care of themselves and to take care of anyone around them so they can be part of our lives".

Unfortunately, we’re not sure teaching them to think as footballers will help the human race much, as it’s only a matter of time before they start shagging everything that walks on two cogs. (Not to worry, someone will come up with a robotic Victoria Beckham sooner or later. sub.ed.)

Civil rights group Big Brother Watch claims to have uncovered the true extent to which police abuse their access to confidential databases. Its own report is fairly topical, given that former Downing Street Head of Communications Andy Coulson and one time News of the World Editor paid the police in order to receive privileged information.

According to Big Brother Watch figures between 2007 and 2010 243 Police officers and staff received criminal convictions for breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA). Around 98 Police officers and staff had their employment terminated for breaching the DPA and 904 cops were subjected to internal disciplinary procedures for breaching the DPA. It has arranged a full breakdown of results by local police authority at its site here.

Daniel Hamilton, Director of Big Brother Watch said allegations surrounding Andy Coulson are just the tip of the iceberg. He said it was astonishing to think that 904 Police officers and support staff across England have faced disciplinary action for abusing their access to confidential systems.

The investigation shows that cops run background records checks on friends and possible partners, but sometimes have passed sensitive information to criminal gangs and drug dealers. He said that this was hugely intrusive and, at worse, downright dangerous. He said that UK coppers needed to adopt a zero tolerance approach to this kind of behaviour. Those found guilty of abusing their position should be sacked on the spot.”

One of the worst areas was Merseyside, where 208 officers and police staff received criminal convictions for breaching the DPA since 2007. West Midlands was a long way behind as the runner up with 83 convictions. Kent had the highest number of sackings for DPA breaches since 2007 followed by Merseyside, and West Midlands.

Two embarrassing computer glitches are making the organisers of London's Olympic games look like a really unprofessional bunch.

Just hours after the tickets went on sale the fault appeared, leaving anyone trying to book with a Visa credit card due to expire before the end of June discovering that the London 2012 website could not process their orders. At the same time, the official Olympic countdown clock, sponsored by official timekeeper Omega, stopped only a day after it was unveiled in Trafalgar Square. Sheepish technicians were trying to restore the service last night.

Part of the problem for the London Olympics is that buying tickets is a bit of a lottery, and to win tickets you need a valid credit card. However if people try to enter the lottery, and their card expires before the lottery is drawn, it will be invalid.

Still it all looks pretty bad for the London Olympics. After the country has spent billions on them, most of the country expects it to be a catalogue of disasters. It is the British way of doing things.

BT has inked a deal with Chinese telecom company Huawei, which will mean the outfit will develop gear which will be used as part of Britain's BT Internet's 2.5 billion plans for super fast broadband. However Huawei's links to the Chinese military, has raised fears among security experts who warn that Britain could be vulnerable to cyber attacks and spying.

Huawei's head Ren Zhengfei is a high-ranking Communist party member with connections in the Chinese government. Before he took the job he was a director of the telecoms research arm of China's three-million-strong People's Liberation Army. During the Cultural Revolution he was an army officer.

Bts new technology will connect two-thirds of British homes and offices by 2015, and is being tested in Chinese labs. Dr Kim Howells, the former chair of the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, describes the situation as 'very worrying'. Howells said that no matter how a Chinese company presents itself it is never really separate from the state or free from Chinese government diktats.

The UK Home Office is about to get dragged into the European Court of Justice over data retention laws in Blighty. For the Home office a rapid review of its Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has been undertaken and the UK government is rushing through a consultation document to try to head off a potentially expensive court case brought by the EC.

Changes to RIPA has been online but responses must arrive before December 7. Apparently the EU gave the government two months to take action in October. Under the new plan there would be civil sanctions even against unintentional interception of customer communications. The Interception of Communications Commissioner (IoCC) would gain powers to act against ISPs and telecom carriers.

The IoCC would be able to impose fines of up to £10,000 for unintentional interception. If the breach was shown to be intentional, the penalty could be a prison term of up to two years upon conviction.The idea is to make the enforcement process more streamlined and reduce the administrative burden on the police, the CPS and courts.

The EC is miffed that the UK government’s lack of action to seal the loopholes in RIPA have allowed BT to snoop on customers using Phorm’s advertising profiling software. With the changes to the rules, Phorm would be outlawed and BT would be in trouble for using it to snoop on customers.

Under EC regulations, consent for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to intercept user communications must be “freely-given, specific and informed” as this was not the case in BT’s use of Phorm, RIPA has been held to be at fault and the Commission requested action which has yet to be taken.

This delay prompted the EC to threaten court proceedings but the issuance of the consultation document may stay the Commission’s hand. If not, the government could be fined millions of Euros for every day that the legal loopholes exist.

Blighty's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is in hot water after it sent too non-techies to investigate Google's illegal collection of data from Wi-Fi connections.

The ICO cleared Google of all wrongdoing after examining a sample of so-called "payload" data at Google's London headquarters based on an investigation by two members of its staff. However it turned out the staff, while knowing a lot about data protection law, knew precious little about the technology they were looking at. The ICO later ruled was a "significant breach" of the Data Protection Act.

The Guardian has quoted Conservative MP Rob Halfon as saying it was "astonishing" that the ICO "did not send technical people" to investigate the breach. In fact it only changed its minds when it saw the results of investigations carried out in foreign parts by other, more technology aware investigators.

Halfon said that the IOC seems more Keystone Cops than protector of our civil liberties. “It is extraordinary that the ICO can spend £13m on PR over 10 years but can't find the right resources to investigate breaches of our data protection,"Halfon said.

Despite Google being in the news a lot over privacy, the ICO has only met Google twice in the last two years, the Guardian has found out. When the Google Street View scandle blew up the ICO sent an assistant commissioner and a "strategic liason group manager" to examine the data at Google's headquarters in July, deciding after a two-and-a-half hour meeting that the company was unlikely to have collected "significant amounts of personal data" or data containing any "meaningful personal details".

Of course now the Germans have largely done the work for the UK, the information commissioner last week announced that Google will now be subject to an official audit of all of its data protection practices in the UK. "It is my view that the collection of this information was not fair or lawful and constitutes a significant breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act," he said.

Just so long as he is not going to appoint his cat to oversee the monitoring we should be ok.